Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Who Decides the Harm in “Do No Harm?”

By Wesley J. SmithEditor’s Note: In his excellent piece Wesley Smith sounds the
alarm about a Canadian board that typifies the push to deny life-saving
medical treatment against the will of patients and families on both
sides of the border. National Right to Life is more pessimistic than he
is about the “rarity” of these cases – see ww.nrlc.org/uploads/medethics/WillYourAdvanceDirectiveBeFollowed.pdf.
And in our view the circumstances in which health care providers should
be able to coerce denial of treatment should be limited to
physiological futility – only when, in reasonable medical judgment,
withholding or withdrawal of the desired treatment would neither cause
nor hasten the patient’s death.

Julie
Cheah holds a photo of her late husband, Mann Kee Li. Cheah, who went
to court to dispute a “do not resuscitate” code on his hospital chart,
says she was not told of the Ontario panel that mediates in such cases.RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR

Medical futility disputes often involve the question of harming the
patient. Family/patient believe they should decide what constitutes
“harm” in these cases, and that for the patient/family, the greatest
harm would be death. Hence, they insist that efficacious treatment to
extend life continue–as the way to avoid harm. That is, after all, a
fundamental purpose of medicine when staying alive is wanted.
Bioethicists and some doctors believe that they get to decide what
constitutes “harm.” Thus, if a patient is unlikely to recover or ever
lead a “meaningful” life, they insist on being able to stop wanted
treatment.

Religion is also a large factor in many of these situations. The
secularist view sees suffering as the worst harm. Many religions,
particularly more traditional approaches to Catholicism, Islam, and
Judaism, death. Thus, forcing treatment to cease is often viewed as
disrespecting freedom of religion.
At the same time, many futilitiarians believe in judging “harm” on a
the macro level. They look beyond the patient to perceived emotional
harm to the family–and the morale of the reluctant medical team–as well
as financial harm to society by “investing” resources on the patient
supposedly more wisely spent elsewhere.

So who gets to decide the meaning of “harm” in a particular situation–the patient/family or the technocrats?
Canada has established a bureaucratic board to make these decisions
when doctors/bioethicists and patients/families disagree. From the
Toronto Star story:

In Ontario, intractable,
life-and-death disputes between physicians and patients’ families
sometimes end up before a unique provincial body charged with wading
into complex issues of medicine, ethics and faith. The little-known
Consent and Capacity Board (CCB) — the only one of its kind in North
America, perhaps anywhere — is a working laboratory for the most
pressing issue facing Canada’s healthcare system: the end of life.

When a physician’s treatment proposal
is challenged by a family member whose loved one can no longer
communicate their wishes, doctors can make an application to the CCB.
The Board then convenes a hearing within seven days, often in hospital
board rooms, headed by a lawyer, a public member and a medical
professional, typically a psychiatrist.

The panel’s job is a mix of legal
arguments and character analysis. It must ultimately determine an
incapacitated patient’s “prior wishes” or “best interests.” The panel
must then issue a binding order within 24 hours of the hearing’s
conclusion — a remarkably fast and economical process relative to the
courts.

It seems to me that these futility cases are so relatively few and far between that coercion should rarely–if ever–be used.

These are subjective decisions. Establishing bureaucratic boards
would sow mistrust for the system and validate the concept of “death
panels.”
And talk about the potential for abuse of power. Why should strangers
to the patient be given so much authority, in effect, empowered to
impose their values over those of the family?
No. Education and continual mediation should be the watchword.
Doctors should be brutally frank about the consequences of continuing
care. But barring very rare circumstances, the patient/family should
have the final word.

Abortion in Elections: It’s not about us – it’s about the 3,000 babies who will die by abortion today

By Karen Cross, National Right to Life Political DirectorEditor’s note. The column appears in the September digital
edition of National Right to Life News. The entire 38-page edition can
be read at www.nrlc.org/uploads/NRLNews/NRLNewsSeptember2014.pdfI’m going to say something some may find shocking.
It’s not about you.
Nope. And it’s definitely not about me. It’s about the nearly 3,000
unborn children who will die a brutal death by abortion today. And
another 3,000 tomorrow. It’s about protecting their lives – and their
futures.

Occasionally, I hear from people who are opposed to our endorsements
who complain that a Congressman or Senator has “been in too long,” or
they’re too old, or that they’re “not conservative enough.”
These concerns entirely miss the point. We are in the business of
saving lives. If someone has reached a level of power after serving long
enough that they can impact lifesaving legislation, God bless them!
And what on earth does age have to do with whether a member of the House or Senate can vote for life?

How they vote, and whether they will vote to protect life, is what really matters.
Life matters.
Protecting life transcends all political parties, all religions, all races, and people of all economic status.
This year, the United States Senate is only a net gain of six seats shy of achieving pro-life leadership.
Thirty-six U.S. Senate seats are up this year – 21 are held by
pro-abortion Democrats or “Independents” who caucus with them, and 15
are held by Republicans.
We, who understand how precious life is, must defend the pro-life seats.
And, we must also work to take those seats held by pro-abortion
senators and representatives and replace them with legislators who will
vote for life.

Since 1973, more than 56 million defenseless babies have been aborted
– more than 3,000 each day, 365 days a year. When we stay home on
election day babies die, allowing atrocities seen in the murder trial of
abortionist Kermit Gosnell to continue across the nation.
Some people wrongly believe what they personally do won’t really make
a difference. Yet, this past spring in West Virginia (my home state),
four House of Delegates candidates lost or won their primary elections
by fewer than twenty votes combined. Had a handful of their friends
shown up to vote, the outcome may have been altered.

What is the clear message? You CAN make a difference in your
community, and even in our nation. You can make sure your pro-life
family and friends go to the polls and vote for pro-life candidates.
Together, if we remain focused and we persevere, if we continue to
work and organize, in 2014, we can bring needed change to Washington,
D.C. We can begin to reverse the perverse culture of death which is
shaming our nation. It is essential that we prioritize protecting our
nation’s most precious resource – our children, and those who are most
vulnerable.

You are pro-life because you recognize that it’s not about us, or our
individual states, or our preferred candidate: It is about coming
closer each day to a pro-life Court that will protect the lives of
vulnerable human beings – unborn children, and medically dependent and
people with disabilities.
The 3,000 babies who die by abortion today are too important to lose sight of that ultimate goal.
Look for election updates in future National Right to Life News and National Right to Life News Today

Pope Francis calls the abandonment of the elderly “tantamount to a hidden euthanasia”

By Dave AndruskoTo
put it mildly, a headline that read only, “Pope’s Meeting With the
Elderly in St. Peter’s Square” missed all that was special Sunday in a
gathering Pope Francis (and his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)
had with elderly from around the world.
According to the news agency Zenit, on the initiative of the
Pontifical Council for the Family, thousands of elderly and
grandparents, accompanied by their families, came to in St. Peter’s
Square in Rome.
Pope Francis’ warning was strong and clear: “How many times are old
people just discarded, victims of an abandonment that is tantamount to
hidden euthanasia? This is the result of a throw-away culture that is
hurting our world so much.”
The Pope went on to say at a meeting entitled, “The Blessings of a
Long Life,” that “A people that does not care for its grandparents, that
does not treat them well, are people that have no future! Why do they
not have a future? Because they lose their memory and [are torn] from
their roots.”
Even in the most difficult trials, Pope Francis said, “the elderly
who have faith are like trees that continue to bear fruit. And this is
true also in the most ordinary situations where, however, there can be
other temptations and other forms of discrimination.”
He said when the elderly person does not have a family that can receive them, the homes that are established

“must be truly homes and not prisons!
They must be for the elderly and not for the interests of someone else!
There must not be institutes where the elderly live forgotten, as
hidden, neglected. I feel close to so many elderly who live in these
institutes. …Homes for the elderly should be ‘lungs’ of humanity in a
country, in a neighborhood, in a parish; they should be ‘shrines’ of
humanity where one who is old and weak is taken care of and protected as
an older brother or sister. It does so much good to go to meet an
elderly person. Look at our youngsters: sometimes we see them listless
and sad; Then they go to see an elderly person and they become joyful!”

Playing the victim card ignores the real victim: the unborn baby

By Dave AndruskoAs
we have documented in exhaustive detail, one wing of the Abortion
Movement (and not an insignificant one) has become militantly insistent
that women have the “right” to self-abort. And never you mind about
state laws, the incredible dangers of buying powerful chemical
abortifacients sight unseen, and their own version of “mission creep”:
abortions performed well into the second trimester, if not beyond.

Some of the arguments are more sophisticated than the one I’m about
to look at, a piece from the student newspaper at the University of
Buffalo that ran under the headline (I kid you not), “In prison for
parenting.”
National Right to Life News Today readers are familiar with Jennifer
Whalen and the publicity campaign to make a martyr out of woman who
trolled the Internet for chemical abortifacients to kill her grandchild.
She was recently sentenced to serve a 9-to-18-month in jail (with
granted work-release) for what the New York Times’ Emily Bazelon
described mockingly as

“[O]rdering pills online that her
older daughter took in the first several weeks of an unplanned
pregnancy, when she was 16, to induce a miscarriage. The medication was a
combination of mifepristone (formerly called RU-486) and misoprostol.
The drugs have been available from a doctor with a prescription in the
United States since 2000 and are used around the world to induce
miscarriage.”

The author of the editorial in the University of Buffalo student
newspaper piece obviously read Bazelon’s piece. To their credit, he or
she grasped that “The illegality of Whalen’s actions isn’t in question
here. There’s no doubt that the dispersal of prescription drugs needs to
be strictly monitored and controlled by professionals who are trained
to do so.”
So what is in question? “[T]hat Whalen felt she needed to circumvent
the law is the real issue at hand.” And that the judge, in the editorial
writer’s opinion, was too harsh. That “reveals a lack of sympathy for
Whalen’s situation – a situation created by factors entirely outside of
her control.” We read

“Tasked with helping her daughter end
an unwanted pregnancy – with protecting her daughter and the future she
wanted – Whalen didn’t feel like she had any options available, at
least not any legal ones (she also says that she didn’t know her actions
were illegal when she committed them).”

And since, as the last paragraph concludes, “Thanks to her mother’s
efforts, [her daughter] is free to pursue whatever future she desires,”
it is “patently unjust that freedom is only a distant hope” for Jennifer
Whalen.
Apparently it’s not unjust that the grandbaby has no hope, distant or otherwise.
A couple of thoughts. The list of reasons the editorial
cites—distance to the nearest abortion clinic, cost, and ignorance (“if
Whalen had known of the risks of ordering pills online”)—is just a
backdoor way of getting at the real “enemy”: the absence of an abortion
clinic on every corner, any law that requires a waiting period,
limitations on how late in pregnancy chemical abortifacients should be
used, and (although not mentioned here) requirements that abortion
clinics meet minimal standards.
In other words, you (authors of pro-life legislation and, I guess,
the FDA) made Ms. Whalen do it. They (taxpayers) should be paying for
Ms. Whalen’s teenage daughter’s abortion.
Moreover you and/or they are responsible when the inevitable happens,
(but fortunately did not to Ms. Whalen’s daughter): women and girls
die.
It’s a very unsubtle argument. We must facilitate abortions, pay for
abortions, forget protective laws, and keep parents out of the loop.
Because if we don’t, the blame is not on the women getting the abortion (or the parents who order abortifacients online) but us.

On the day before the anniversary of passage of the Hyde Amendment, a “religious” call for its elimination

By Dave Andrusko

The Rev. Harry Knox

I promise to try extra-hard to critique, not ridicule, “Reverends
like us should never oppose access to abortion or sex ed,” by Harry Knox
and Alethea Smith-Withers which appeared today in the Washington Post.
That being said, the column runs under the heading PostEverything. A
better heading would be PostAnything.
This is such a silly column, we’ll devote only a few paragraphs (and none to sex education which is not our issue).

Of course there is no “monolithic” view on abortion; there is no
monolithic view on almost anything. Even if there was, Reverends like
Knox (who is the President of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive
Choice) and Smith-Withers (chair of the board) would still pad their
op-ed with the usual pro-abortion talking points.

By the way abortionist Willie Parker is on the RCAR board. We have
profiled Parker, a typical RCRC type, who flies into Mississippi twice a
month and performs as many as 45 abortions a day.
We’re told “And clergy do not always use Bible verses as political
weapons — a misrepresentation too often promoted in the media.” Perhaps
they don’t use Bible verses at all because they don’t have any they can
twist to serve their life-denying purposes. We’re also told

“People of faith, as well as those
with no religious affiliation, have widely varying opinions about moral
questions. That’s okay. Freedom for differing views and beliefs is a
core American value. The problem is when one particular religious
viewpoint gets written into law, in direct violation of our national
commitment to religious liberty.”

This is so silly, indeed so sophomoric, it almost is a waste of time
to respond. When abortions are funded by law; when the law is changed to
allow everyone but plumbers to abort children; when the law is changed
from protecting unborn children to declaring open season on them—is that
not an example of “one particular religious viewpoint get[ting] written
into law”?

The Rev. Alethea Smith-Withers

And of course Knox and Smith-Withers take dead aim, so to speak, at
the Hyde Amendment. Any law that does not facilitate the deaths of the
unborn children of poor women means that hundreds of thousands, even
millions of babies are saved. That is what the Hyde Amendment has done
and why pro-abortion apologists are dead-set on getting this amendment
to the annual appropriations bill of the Department of Health and Human
Services removed.
I wasn’t sure why this piece appeared in the Post until just now when
I realized tomorrow is the 38th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment’s
passage.
These people are relentless—and pitiless—but also blind to the real implications of the language they so glibly employ.

We read

“As clergy we are called by our faith
to promote compassion, respect, and justice for all — in other words,
to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”

Just for all.. and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. Last
time I looked, tearing an unborn baby limb from qualified under neither
category.

Justice Ginsburg, an “icon to the left,” unashamedly criticizes Texas pro-life law

By Dave Andrusko

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

As they say, pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
is on a roll. We talked three last week about the excerpts that appeared
from a forthcoming story in the October issue of Elle magazine and are
coming back to another interview today.
In her Elle interview, Justice Ginsburg lowered the boom on fellow
Justice Anthony Kennedy, Congress the “Hobby Lobby” decision, “those
people” having too many babies (“It makes no sense as a national policy
to promote birth only among poor people”), younger feminists who aren’t
as gung-ho as she is about abortion, and, indirectly, President Obama
for signaling that maybe, just maybe, she might be stepping down in time
for Obama to appoint a younger clone of Ginsburg. (She is having none
of that!)
Well, Ginsburg also gave a long interview to the New Republic’s
Jeffrey Rosen. Writing at National Review Online, Ed Whelan asks if the
following comment doesn’t amount to an obligation on Ginsburg’s part to
recuse herself.

[Rosen]: So how can
advocates make sure that poor women’s access to reproductive choice is
protected? Can legislatures be trusted or is it necessary for courts to
remain vigilant?

[Ginsburg]:How could you trust legislatures in view of the restrictions states are imposing?
Think of the Texas legislation that would put most clinics out of
business. The courts can’t be trusted either. Think of the Carhart
decision or going way back to the two decisions that denied Medicaid
coverage for abortion. I don’t see this as a question of courts versus
legislatures. In my view, both have been moving in the wrong direction.
It will take people who care about poor women. The irony and tragedy is
any woman of means can have a safe abortion somewhere in the United
States. But women lacking the wherewithal to travel can’t. There is no
big constituency out there concerned about access restrictions on poor
women. [Emphasis added]

Well, of course she should not be involved. This law could well come
before the High Court and Justice Ginsburg has prejudged the outcome.
But, of course, she won’t.

There is more very much worth reading at newrepublic.com. Here at two items.#1. In the quote above Ginsburg bashes the “Carhart”
decision which upheld the ban on partial-birth abortion. Only the most
zealous, eyes-shut-tight ideologue could be so hard-hearted as to allow
this incredibly brutal abortion technique to remain legal. But to
Ginsburg Gonzales v. Carhart was nothing more than “a new form of ‘Big
Brother must protect the woman against her own weakness and immature
misjudgment.’”

#2. The ability to completely miss the point. She told Rosen

“Going back to the 1980s, I was
speaking at Duke, not about abortion in particular, but about equal
opportunities for women to be whatever their God-given talent allowed
them to be, without artificial barriers placed in their way. During the
question period, an African American man commented: ‘We know what you
lily-white women are all about. You want to kill black babies.’ That’s
how some in the African American community regarded the choice movement.
So I think it would be helpful if civil rights groups homed in on the
impact of the absence of choice on African American women. That would be
useful.”

An African-American correctly understands that people just like
Ginsburg have as a priority making sure that “those people” don’t have
too many kids. Answer to his trenchant observation? Certainly not to
address the truth that African-American babies are aborted in wildly
disproportionate numbers. Rather focus on the impact of the “absence of
choice.”
Amazing. No wonder Ginsburg has become, in Rosen’s fawning words, “an icon to the left, inspiring fanwear and Tumblr tributes.”

Justice Ginsburg, an “icon to the left,” unashamedly criticizes Texas pro-life law

By Dave Andrusko

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

As they say, pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
is on a roll. We talked three last week about the excerpts that appeared
from a forthcoming story in the October issue of Elle magazine and are
coming back to another interview today.
In her Elle interview, Justice Ginsburg lowered the boom on fellow
Justice Anthony Kennedy, Congress the “Hobby Lobby” decision, “those
people” having too many babies (“It makes no sense as a national policy
to promote birth only among poor people”), younger feminists who aren’t
as gung-ho as she is about abortion, and, indirectly, President Obama
for signaling that maybe, just maybe, she might be stepping down in time
for Obama to appoint a younger clone of Ginsburg. (She is having none
of that!)
Well, Ginsburg also gave a long interview to the New Republic’s
Jeffrey Rosen. Writing at National Review Online, Ed Whelan asks if the
following comment doesn’t amount to an obligation on Ginsburg’s part to
recuse herself.

[Rosen]: So how can
advocates make sure that poor women’s access to reproductive choice is
protected? Can legislatures be trusted or is it necessary for courts to
remain vigilant?

[Ginsburg]:How could you trust legislatures in view of the restrictions states are imposing?
Think of the Texas legislation that would put most clinics out of
business. The courts can’t be trusted either. Think of the Carhart
decision or going way back to the two decisions that denied Medicaid
coverage for abortion. I don’t see this as a question of courts versus
legislatures. In my view, both have been moving in the wrong direction.
It will take people who care about poor women. The irony and tragedy is
any woman of means can have a safe abortion somewhere in the United
States. But women lacking the wherewithal to travel can’t. There is no
big constituency out there concerned about access restrictions on poor
women. [Emphasis added]

Well, of course she should not be involved. This law could well come
before the High Court and Justice Ginsburg has prejudged the outcome.
But, of course, she won’t.

There is more very much worth reading at newrepublic.com. Here at two items.#1. In the quote above Ginsburg bashes the “Carhart”
decision which upheld the ban on partial-birth abortion. Only the most
zealous, eyes-shut-tight ideologue could be so hard-hearted as to allow
this incredibly brutal abortion technique to remain legal. But to
Ginsburg Gonzales v. Carhart was nothing more than “a new form of ‘Big
Brother must protect the woman against her own weakness and immature
misjudgment.’”

#2. The ability to completely miss the point. She told Rosen

“Going back to the 1980s, I was
speaking at Duke, not about abortion in particular, but about equal
opportunities for women to be whatever their God-given talent allowed
them to be, without artificial barriers placed in their way. During the
question period, an African American man commented: ‘We know what you
lily-white women are all about. You want to kill black babies.’ That’s
how some in the African American community regarded the choice movement.
So I think it would be helpful if civil rights groups homed in on the
impact of the absence of choice on African American women. That would be
useful.”

An African-American correctly understands that people just like
Ginsburg have as a priority making sure that “those people” don’t have
too many kids. Answer to his trenchant observation? Certainly not to
address the truth that African-American babies are aborted in wildly
disproportionate numbers. Rather focus on the impact of the “absence of
choice.”
Amazing. No wonder Ginsburg has become, in Rosen’s fawning words, “an icon to the left, inspiring fanwear and Tumblr tributes.”

400 copies of College newspaper with CPC ad vandalized

By Dave AndruskoIt
is a free country so a Drake University professor of English and
Women’s and Gender Studies was welcome to hammer the student newspaper
(the Times-Delphic) for the audacity of running an ad from AGAPE
Pregnancy Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

Beth Younger walloped AGAPE with the usual pro-abortion subtly(AGAPE
is one of “these deceptive and harmful organizations”), attempted to
neutralize the impact of the ad (asking/demanding the student newspaper
“publish a disclaimer next to the ad”), and demonstrated complete
indifference to the facts (the entirety of her screech).
As an academic, no doubt Prof. Younger was appalled when somebody
took her indignation a few steps further. Last Thursday afternoon,
Austin Cannon, managing editor, found a pile of 400 destroyed copies in
front of their office.

“On top of the pile was one paper with an advertisement for a
pregnancy resource center circled in black marker,” reported KCCI
Channel 8. The vandalism represented a cost of around $200 worth of
newspaper.
The reaction of the President was straight-forward. In a campus-wide email sent out Friday, David Maxwell wrote

“This act goes beyond mere vandalism —
it is an attempt to curtail First Amendment rights regarding free
speech, and is thus antithetical to our core values as the Drake
University community. … Those who have concerns about the agency that
paid for the advertisement have every right to express those concerns
and to catalyze debate, as Prof. Younger has done in her letter to the
editor. But we should all be outraged by an act that not only entails
the destruction of others’ property, but is intended to communicate a
message in a manner that violates our sense of who we are and what we
stand for as a university.”

In a television interview on Channel 8, Editor-in-Chief Courtney Fishman said

“It’s just a little disheartening to
me because it doesn’t mean we support the organization, and we’ve run
ads from Planned Parenthood in the past. So it’s interesting to me that
people are upset about it, and they’ve very welcome to be upset about
it, but it’s upsetting that they’re vandalizing our property.”

Fishman told the Des Moines Register that he paper will “absolutely” continue to publish ads from Agape, despite criticism.

One other note. In his email, President Maxwell also cited the letter
from Prof. Younger as a way “to catalyze debate.” Younger’s name was
not mentioned in any story about the vandalizing that I could find
[Editor’s note. I subsequently found her name mentioned in a UPI story],
nor her outlandish slurs against AGAPE addressed.

What outrageous things did the ad say? The headline is “Think you
might be pregnant?” followed up by “Free pregnancy tests” and “Free
ultrasounds.”
What will those villainous pro-lifers think of next?

Monday, September 29, 2014

BREAKING: Catholic university complies with abortion mandate

Earlier this month, the state of California demanded
that even Catholic universities offer elective abortions through
insurance plans. Life Legal Defense Foundation and Alliance Defending
Freedom has filed a complaint
with the United States Department of Health and Human Services. But for
now, Loyola Marymount University, a private Catholic school, must offer
elective abortions to all those under its insurance policy.

“LMU’s insurance will cover
faculty and staff for elective abortions effective from August 22 to the
end of the policy period, the University announced.

“The news was confirmed in an
email sent to faculty and staff yesterday, Vice President for Human
Resources Rebecca Chandler confirmed that LMU’s insurance providers will
now cover all procedures deemed medically necessary, including elective
abortions.”

This reversal comes under the heavy hand of the state of California directive from Michelle Rouillard, director of the Department of Managed Healthcare (DHMC). Rouillard said, when the directive was issued, that:“Abortion is a basic health care service.” And
for now, Rouillard and Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Catholic seminary
student, have their way in forcing Catholics to violate their conscience
protections.

Though the university is following the law as it stands, the story
is not over. The complaint to the United States Department of Health and
Human Services asserting the state of California’s discrimination
against federal conscience protections, says:

“DMHC ordered elective abortion coverage into the
Complainants’ own LMU health plan…..This directive of the DMHC
constitutes unlawful discrimination against a healthcare entity…. DMHC
is subject[ing] Complainants’ “health insurance plan” to
“discrimination,” by denying its approval of the plan that omitted
elective abortions solely “on the basis that the [plan] does not…
provide coverage of… abortions.”

Life Legal Defense Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom continue
to fight for the rights of Catholic universities to be allowed to
exercise their rights as well. Life Legal Defense Foundation also said,
“If you or anyone you know, individual, employer, or insurance provider,
is directly affected by this decision, please contact Life Legal Defense Foundation.”
The response to the complaint filed with the Department of Health and Human Services is still pending.

Early Options Abortion Clinic Distorts the Truth about Early Abortion

By Sarah Terzo

Poor abortion clinics. There is so much information on the Internet
that it’s hard to keep women in the dark anymore. You can Google fetal
development and see that the heart of the baby begins beating at 21
days. It’s becoming more widely known. So one abortion clinic, Early
Options, which claims that an embryo “doesn’t exist” that early (one
wonders what they are aborting then) says the following on their
website:

“If there is no embryo, why do they
say there is a heartbeat? At seven weeks of pregnancy, the cells that
will become the embryo start to cluster inside the gestational sac.
These cells can be seen on ultrasound, but would not be visible to the
naked eye. At this time, the cells that are determined to later form the
heart start to “beat.” An ultrasound technician will often interpret
the beating cells as a ‘heartbeat’ long before a heart develops.”

Cited in Stacy Trasancos “Clinic: We Do Abortions With No Disturbing Suction Noise” LifeNews 11/3/11.
That’s right, a heartbeat isn’t a heartbeat – it’s just cells
beating… Makes perfect sense. By the way, below is a picture of an
unborn baby at 7 weeks after conception.
Just in case they’re referring to an embryo at 7 weeks since the
woman’s last period, 2 weeks before conception, here is a 5 week old
embryo – it’s not as recognizably human, but it’s clearly an embryo, not
simply a collection of cells. You can clearly see the heart of the
baby.
And if that’s not enough, here is a video of an unborn baby’s heart beating at 6 weeks:
Is that a heart or just “cells determined to be a heart?”
It’s amazing how abortion clinics distort the truth sometimes.

Mother’s water breaks at 16 weeks, she refuses “termination,” miracle baby now thriving

By Dave Andrusko

Katy
Evans’s waters broke when she was just 16 weeks pregnant, leaving
doctors to warn her unborn baby had a one per cent chance of surviving.

Katy Evans doesn’t blame the doctors at Lister Hospital in Stevenage,
England for asking her if she wanted to “terminate” her pregnancy when
her water broke just 16 weeks into her pregnancy.
“Mrs. Evans had preterm prelabour rupture of membranes (PPROM), a
rare condition causing the amniotic fluid to drain from her womb,”
reported The Daily Mail’s Louise Baty. Mrs. Evans learned it was
standard procedure for doctors in the UK to offer a “termination” in
this situation to give the mother the best chance of avoiding a serious
infection.
But Mrs. Evans and her husband, Rich, held onto hope, although they
were told the baby had less than a 1% chance of survival and “even if it
did survive, it might develop without limbs or be born unable to
breathe.” They went home after Mrs. Evans spent 48 hours in the hospital
and received antibiotics.
Then, as Louise Baty explained,

“Incredibly, two weeks later, scans
revealed her waters had replenished themselves in her womb – something
doctors treating her had never seen before.

During those two days in the hospital she’d read up. She found that
although the chances of a successfully completed pregnancy were very,
very small, “I discovered that, in reality, there seemed to be a much
higher rate of survival in these cases than the one per cent figure from
official statistics. That gave me hope.”

She refused to give up on her unborn child. “This was a very much
wanted pregnancy,’ she told Baty. “I could feel my baby kicking. I
already loved this little person.”
Two days later she hadn’t miscarried and a consultant came to see if she would agree to a “termination.”

“I told her that no, I didn’t want an abortion. I said that I wanted nature to take its course.

“She was clearly shocked because she told me that, perhaps, I should speak to my husband, implying that he’d be less emotional.”

But husband Rich was in full agreement with his wife.
Of course when she went home, a premature delivery/miscarriage was
possible at any moment. But when they went back to Lister Hospital two
weeks later, a scan

“revealed the unbelievable had
happened. Mrs. Evans’s waters had replenished in her womb, after the
rupture healed. Doctors told the couple they had never seen a case like
theirs before. The scan also revealed that the baby seemed to be
developing normally.”

“It was the first time that I allowed myself to cry,” Mrs. Evans said.

They were warned that her water could break again and that she was
still at a high risk of infection. But “I barely heard the doctors
telling me all this because I was on cloud nine and thought everything
was fantastic,” she said.

The milestones came and went—the key being 24 weeks. As Mrs. Evans
diplomatically explained to the reporter, “from then on, the NHS
[National Health Service] considers it a viable pregnancy – a baby
rather than a foetus.”

Leo is now 8-months-old, weighs 17lb, and is expected to have
completely caught up with his development by 10 months. “We feel
unbelievably lucky,” Mrs. Evans said. “It’s just over a year now since I
was sitting in that hospital bed, waiting for a miscarriage.”
She added thoughtfully, “It’s amazing how you will fight for this baby inside you. I wanted my child to make it.”

Wisconsin Right to Life’s summer camps build leaders who will benefit the cause of life for years to come.

Throughout history we’ve been consumed with making things bigger and
better. It’s the American way. But what good, really, is a bigger and
better car/house/boat/mousetrap in a world where the most basic rights –
specifically life – are not cherished? The answer is obvious. Not much.
It is with that in mind, that we at Wisconsin Right to Life, like
other NRLC affiliates, have devoted much time and effort to building
something a little more lasting. In short, we’re building leaders –
young people who will carry the cause of life into the future as they
grow up, graduate, attend college, enter the workforce and start
families of their own.

The beauty of this strategy is that the right-to-life message – the
basic truth that life is valuable and must be protected – is not
something you outgrow. It’s something that, once you have made it a part
of your life, you carry forward and share with others. You talk about
it on campus. You share with co-workers. You teach your own children to
love and protect life. You build a culture that cherishes life one
conversation, one interaction at a time.
Here in Wisconsin, we have been hosting summer camps to train young
pro-life leaders since the summer of 2003. In that time we have trained
hundreds and even thousands of young people to defend the cause of life
with words and actions as they debate, engage in social media and reach
out to help women who face unplanned pregnancies. And while that
training is invaluable and forms the bedrock for our youth outreach
program, we quickly realized that it, alone, wasn’t enough.
It was a fabulous start, of course. But we needed to do more. (And
this is true for all of us in this movement… until every life is
protected, we MUST continue to do more, every single day.)
What, for example, about kids who were trained at our camps as teenagers but then graduate and go to college?
Enter our college grant program which helps form right-to-life groups
on college campuses throughout the state, ensuring that what is learned
at camp will continue to reach hearts and minds throughout a young
person’s post-high school years. This idea was one proposed by a
volunteer in the living room of a local chapter leader back in 2004.
Since that time, hundreds of college students have participated in a
program that has educated thousands on campuses across the state.
But, as we examined our work – it’s the only way to improve your
reach – we realized that even more could be done. In 2013 we started a
program to initiate and grow new Teens for Life groups across the state.
The pilot year followed groups in all corners of the state and
continues to build leaders who are savvy, articulate, and ready to
answer any challenge set before them. The leaders of these groups, in
turn, train the members of the group, and those members go home and
educate siblings, parents and extended family.
You see, we have learned through the years of our youth outreach,
that while training is vital, you can’t just throw information at
teenagers, send them home, and expect them to succeed. As with anything
of real value, much of the success will be based on relationships. We
have seen that as those relationships are nurtured – as conversations
happen, as friendships form, and as young men and women feel truly a
part of something bigger and broader than themselves, leaders are built –
one brick, one stone, one layer at a time.

Wisconsin Right to Life has learned that building leaders starts with relationships that affirm life.

The best news in all of this is that building leaders is something
that can be done at every level in every single state in our entire
great country. State affiliates can sponsor youth programs that train
high school and college-aged youth. Those youth will help train other
young people. At the same time, they will go back to their local
right-to-life chapters and help with projects. And at every step of the
process, relationships will be established and another layer will be
added to the leadership capabilities of each individual young person.

Sound too good to be true? Do you think this is harder than it
sounds? Perhaps you’re skeptical that it will really work. Imagine with
me, for a minute, that your local chapter receives a letter from a shy
15 year old girl who would like to become more involved. You give her a
call and invite her to a meeting. She attends and you gradually give her
more and more responsibilities until eventually she graduates and goes
to college.
She goes on to intern and then work full-time at National Right to
Life. In time she returns to your state and takes a position with your
state affiliate, working with youth. Or social media. Or legislators.
This isn’t fiction. It has happened time and time again.
You see, when you invest, when you establish a relationship, when you
give of your time – YOU can and will build young leaders. And in doing
so, you will save lives. Perhaps even the world. One brick, one stone,
one layer at a time.

So… GO OUT THERE AND BUILD SOME LEADERS! Do you think a Teens for
Life camp sounds like a grand idea, but your state doesn’t have one?
Contact us! Would you like to start a Teens for Life program in your
state? We can help. Whatever you can do, please do it. And if you need
help, please let us know!

For more information on National Right to Life’s Life and Leadership
Camp Initiative, how to start a local Teens for Life group, or any of
these other projects, please contact us at jlittle@wrtl.org.

Remembering the War on Women and Girls in China

By Marie Smith, Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI)Thursday
marked the 34th anniversary of the enforcement of China’s brutal
One-Child Policy, a policy which results in the loss of millions of
unborn children and inflicts horrific abuse upon women. The cruel policy
– which makes siblings illegal – has been implemented through coercion
and violence and resulted in a dramatic gender imbalance in the
population.
Despite a reported lessening of the population control policy for
small sectors of the population, China continues to oppress and
victimize Chinese mothers, fathers, and children through forced abortion
and involuntary sterilization.
Women found to be pregnant with an “unapproved” pregnancy are
forcibly aborted, including in the last month of pregnancy. Families
found with children “over-quota” are forced to pay staggering social
compensation fees equaling years of wages and “unauthorized” children
can suffer alienation and denial of education and health benefits.
The Chinese war on the littlest of women continues through
sex-selective abortion and infanticide, enabled by a cultural preference
for males. Yet, the origins of sex-selective abortion go back to 1969
in the United States when the Population Council proposed it as an
“ethical” way to control population. In her book Unnatural Selection:
Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men,
Mara Hvistendahl explains:

“By August 1969, when the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Population
Council convened another workshop on population control, sex selection
had become a pet scheme….Sex selection, moreover, had the added
advantage of reducing the number of potential mothers….if a reliable sex
determination technology could be made available to a mass market,”
there was “rough consensus” that sex selection abortion “would be an
effective, uncontroversial and ethical way of reducing the global
population.”

Reggie Littlejohn, President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers

Population controllers were successful. There are an estimated 160
million females missing from the world today, mainly in Asia. These
missing women will not become wives, daughter-in-laws, mothers, or
grandmothers; they are not only missing but they are sorely missed.
The effects of this gendercide are particularly felt in China as new
and devastating social, economical and demographic challenges have
arisen from the disproportionate population. China reportedly accounts
for 60% of the world’s sex trafficking and tens of millions of men
cannot find wives, leading to an increase of men who seek to purchase
women to serve as a “slave wife.”
Marking the anniversary of the policy, Women’s Rights Without
Frontiers (WRWF) has issued an open letter to China’s President Xi
Jinping in which WRWF President Reggie Littlejohn calls for an end to
the policy:

“The mayhem caused by China’s One
Child Policy continues unabated and has taken some troubling new twists,
with people being driven to mental breakdown, murder and suicide, as
well as an obstetrician using her position of trust in order to traffic
babies. The minor modification of the Policy that took place on January 1
of this year has failed to solve these problems. The One Child Policy
does not need to be modified. It needs to be abolished.”

In August WRWF filed a complaint at the United Nations to the
Commission on the Status of Women chronicling cruel and disturbing
reports of forced abortion and other violations of basic human rights
emerging from China over the past year. One report is about an
obstetrician in Shaanxi province who

“was convicted of trafficking seven
infants, after she had convinced their parents that the infants were
seriously ill or deceased. She was given a suspended death sentence. It
has been estimated that 70,000 children a year are trafficked in China.”

In another

“… a husband demanded compensation
from the Chinese government, claiming that his wife … has suffered from
schizophrenia and violent behavior since she was forcibly aborted at
seven months in November, 2011.”

All Girls Allowed – an organization founded by Tiananmen Square
pro-democracy leader Chai Ling – also marked this anniversary by not
only highlighting ongoing efforts to help save the lives of baby girls
in China but has called attention to the practice of sex selection
abortion in the United States. In Time to End Gendercide in China and in
America, Chai Ling expresses shock and heartbreak that a proposal by
San Francisco’s Supervisor David Chiu to lift a ban on sex selective
abortion in the city was approved. She warns that the approval of this
resolution “removes a pregnant woman’s last weapon she could use to
fight for her baby girl’s right to live.”

She continues,

“As an Asian in America myself, I am
not proud of this cultural practice. However, pretending this practice
does not exist does not stop the brutal slaughter of Asian baby girls
and attacks on their mothers; rather, it condones it and encourages it.
If Mr. Chiu truly wants to show care, to support and protect a woman’s
freedom to choose, I challenge Mr. Chiu to openly condemn China’s
One-Child Policy which deprives women’s basic reproductive rights.
Furthermore, instead of being remembered by history as an Asian man who
encourages the killing of baby girls, I invite Mr. Chiu to join the
movement to end Gendercide!”

PNCI notes that San Francisco is the first city in the USA to
prohibit a ban on sex-selective abortion. A bill – the Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act – had been introduced earlier in the California
state assembly but it failed to pass the first committee vote. Currently
eight states in the U.S. have approved bans on sex-selective abortions.

Friday, September 26, 2014

The abortion pill: the greatest medical advance in history?

It seems to be happening more and more frequently that in my research
I uncover quotes from pro-choice leaders that are completely
astonishing. For example, pro-life writer George Grant quoted Molly
Yard, then president of the pro-abortion group the National Organization
for Women, explaining how important it was for women to have access to
the abortion pill.
The abortion pill, then called RU-486, had not yet been approved in
the United States and pro-choicers were pressuring the FDA to approve
its use for American women. A number of pro-lifers have written about
how the FDA may have rushed the approval of the abortion pill for
political reasons; pro-choicers dispute this. But in the words of Molly
Yard, the abortion pill is:

“…[Perhaps even] the most significant medical advance in
human history and the symbol of a brighter future for women
everywhere.”

This quote appeared in the New York Observer on May 16, 1991, and is cited in George Grant, Grand Illusions: the Legacy of Planned Parenthood (Franklin, Tennessee: Adroit Press, 1988, 1992) page 35.
Molly Yard’s statement shows how out of touch with reality pro-choice
leaders have historically been. To think that the abortion pill, which
kills babies (and sometimes women) is the greatest medical advance in human history is incredibly skewed thinking.
Think about what she has said here for a moment. She is claiming that
the abortion pill is more valuable than the discovery of antibiotics,
which has saved hundreds of millions of lives. It is greater than
cutting edge cancer treatments that prolong life and send patients into
remission. It is greater than the elimination of smallpox, greater than
the creation of vaccines which protect children from dangerous
illnesses, greater than the advances in mental health care that has
allowed mentally ill people to live independent lives rather than being
institutionalized. Greater than medical treatment that allows AIDS
patients to live longer.
Her statement is amazing. Instead of all these advances, she says the
greatest medical advance in human history is a pill that that kills
babies and makes many women suffer horribly. Just read Abby Johnson’s story of her abortion by pill. Johnson
was then the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic. She supported
abortion, yet her suffering after taking the abortion pill was so
extreme that afterwards she went to great lengths to avoid prescribing
women the pill, instead encouraging them to get surgical abortions.

If all this wasn’t enough, the abortion pill has allowed for
something that would never have been possible otherwise – the
opportunity for men to trick their pregnant girlfriends or wives into
aborting their babies. Babies that the women want, but the men in their
lives do not. Cases such as this one were only made possible by the existence of an abortion pill.
So the abortion pill – is it really the greatest medical advance of
history? Or is this a ridiculous statement by a fanatic who is obsessed
with abortion?

Eric Holder, longtime foe of pro-lifers, announces resignation

Attorney General Eric Holder has been facing calls to resign
throughout his six year tenure with the Obama administration — and
finally, he’s announcing that he will, in fact, step down.
Barack Obama has been the most pro-abortion president in this
country’s history, and Eric Holder, as Obama’s right-hand man, has been
right there with him every step of the way.

Needless to say, pro-lifers will not miss Eric Holder.
Unfortunately, Obama is likely to nominate someone who is just as
willing to cover up the crimes of the abortion industry as Holder was —
unless more pro-life politicians are voted into office in November, and
can block the appointment of another pro-abortion extremist into office
as attorney general. Otherwise, it will be business as usual, with an
Eric Holder clone continuing to look the other way for the abortion
industry, while using the power of the government to target pro-lifers.

Justice Ginsburg circles back to her concern that poor people are having too many babies

By Dave Andrusko

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Kudos to the ever-readable, always thoughtful Mollie Hemingway for her excellent piece yesterday, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg Really Wants Poor People To Stop Having Babies”
We had also written about the excerpt from the interview Justice Ginsburg gave Elle magazine.
But we focused on how she had trashed fellow Justice Anthony Kennedy,
Congress, the “Hobby Lobby” Supreme Court decision, and had more subtly
tweaked affluent younger women (for insufficient pro-abortion advocacy)
and President Obama who had used the prospect of her possible
resignation prior to the November elections as red meat to gear up
Democratic activists. (Ginsburg made it clear she likes it just fine
where she is.)
Hemingway zeroed in on Ginsburg’s…insensitive comments about poor
people having babies (I am trying to give Ginsburg the benefit of the
doubt, although that is hard).
Hemingway reminds us of the incredible comments Ginsburg made to
pro-abortion scribe Emily Bazelon in a piece that ran five years ago in
the Sunday New York Times Magazine.NRL News Today wrote about that exchange,
a 4,327-word-long Q&A about the direction justices like Ginsburg
would like abortion jurisprudence to go. (Hint: back to the future.)
Ginsburg momentarily got herself in hot water in response to
Bazelon’s inquiry about what Bazelon described as the “lack of Medicaid
for abortions for poor women.”

JUSTICE GINSBURG:
Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the
court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for
abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided,
there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in
populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was
going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some
people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they
didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came
out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had
been altogether wrong.”

As I wrote at that time it was hard not to reach a very ugly
conclusion. Ginsburg read Roe to be setting the stage for the government
to pay for the abortions of poor women. Why? Because part of the
backdrop for Roe—and the reason she expected the High Court in to
overturn the Hyde Amendment’s limitation on Medicaid-financed abortion
in McRae–was fear that the “wrong” kinds of people were experiencing
population growth (the kind “that we don’t want to have too many of”).
It is no accident, as they say, that three years later, Bazelon would
caught up with Ginsburg after a speech at Yale College to read her the
quote and ask her what she really meant. Bazelon then dutifully transcribed Ginsburg’s revisionism in the form of an article for Slate.com.
Hemingway explained to her reader that Ginsburg was back saying the same old ugly things, only more briefly.

Hemingway writes, “Anyway, in an interview with Elle, [Ginsburg] says
her kid and grandkid don’t get how awful it would be to not have legal
approval for snuffing out one’s growing baby in the womb. And then when
she’s trying to say that protections for unborn children hurt poor women
more than wealthy women since wealthy women can just pay the baby away,
she lets that old eugenics thing slip again.” Ginsburg said

“It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.”

I could paraphrase Hemingway’s brilliant conclusion but I could not possibly do her justice. So here it is:

“I get that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is
one of the most important champions of abortion and that those people
who think people should be able to end some lives after they’ve begun
just love her to pieces. And I get that the birth control and abortion
rights movements have always had deep ties to eugenics, population
control, and master race-type stuff. I get all that.

“But it’s all kind of unseemly, no?
It would be one thing if she were talking about the importance of
promoting birth among all groups of people as a way of affirming the
sacredness of life or what not, but her long-standing focus on how some
‘populations’ shouldn’t be encouraged to have babies and should have
subsidized abortion is beyond creepy. We get it, RBG, your social
circles think life would be so much better if you didn’t have to deal
with those awful poor people and their unapproved backgrounds and living
conditions. But you’re supposed to be a tad bit better in covering up
those motivations, mmmkay.”

By Jennifer Popik, JD, Robert Powell Center for Medical EthicsIn
Switzerland, the numbers of people traveling from abroad to die are
growing dramatically. Even more disturbing is the fact that the reasons
they cite in seeking suicide are growing beyond inevitably terminal
illness to include traditionally manageable conditions. In a New
Scientist magazine article, “Non-fatal diseases increasingly drive
assisted suicide,” Penny Sarchet reports

“An ongoing study of assisted suicide
in the Zurich area has found that the number of foreign people coming
to the country for the purpose is rising. For example, 123 people came
in 2008 and 172 in 2012. In total 611 people came over that period from
31 countries, with most coming from Germany or the UK, with 44 per cent
and 21 per cent of the total respectively.”

Assisting suicide is legal in only a handful of jurisdictions both in
the U.S. and abroad. Assisting suicide in Switzerland is technically
illegal, but the law on the matter punishes only those with selfish
motives–which has turned out to be nearly impossible to prove in Swiss
courts. This has, in practice, led to a system where anyone can assist
in a suicide with essentially no restriction on whose suicides they
facilitate.

According to the Swiss government, “Assisted suicide is resorted to
when life no longer appears worth living for the person concerned, in
particular due to a serious physical illness.” This sort of
standard-less direction from the government has made Switzerland
attractive to outside groups who promote suicide. Over the past decades,
so-called “suicide tourism” had become a booming business in
Switzerland, where an organization called “Dignitas” and other groups
arrange trips for potential suicide victims.

The number of those with non-fatal neurological disorders, arthritis,
osteoporosis, and mental illness who are “helped” to kill themselves
has spiked. Sarchet reports,

“Neurological diseases, only some of
which are fatal, were given as the reason for 47 per cent of assisted
suicides for the years 2008 to 2012, up from 12 per cent in a similar
study of the same region between 1990 and 2000. Rheumatic or connective
tissue diseases, generally considered non-fatal, such as rheumatoid
arthritis and osteoporosis, accounted for 25 per cent of cases in the
new study. Between 1990 and 2000, they were cited in only 10 per cent of
cases. There was also a tiny rise in the number of people coming to
Switzerland because of mental health problems – 3.4 per cent in the
latest study, up from 2.7 per cent. Cancer, on the other hand, was cited
in 37 per cent of cases between 2008 and 2012, a decrease of 10 per
cent.

The New Scientist article quotes UK
suicide advocate Michael Charouneau claiming, “We know that many of
those who travel do so earlier than they would wish, whilst they are
still physically well enough to make the journey.”

He then uses this to argue that Britain’s protective law should be
repealed so the suicidal will know they can be assisted to kill
themselves at home!
The United States is not immune to such trends. In one place where
doctor—prescribed suicide is legal — Washington State — there was a 43
percent rise in doctor-prescribed suicides in 2013. In a trend similar
to that in Switzerland, other concerns–not pain from a terminal
illness–are motivating the requests for suicide. Loss of autonomy and
“dignity” rank highest, according to the official state government
report.

Washington State’s annual report covering 2013 states that 91 percent
reported to their health care provider concerns about loss of autonomy,
79 percent reported to their health care provider concerns about loss
of dignity, and 89 percent reported to their health care provider
concerns about loss of the ability to participate in activities that
make life enjoyable. In contrast, only 36% expressed concern over
inadequate pain control or concern about it in the future.
While suicide advocates such as Compassion and Choices deride fears
of a “slippery slope,” in fact once they achieve a foothold under the
banner of limiting assisting suicide to those with “terminal illness,”
and surrounding it with “safeguards,” experience shows they quickly move
on to expand the grounds and eliminate the “safeguards.”
For one example, after trumpeting “safeguards” in Oregon and
Washington laws, in Vermont Compassion and Choices successfully promoted
a bill that ultimately has virtually none. For another example, after a
Montana court decision held that “consent” is a defense to the crime of
homicide, Compassion and Choices issued a factsheet for legislators
that said

“The Legislature should affirm the
Court’s guidelines, and not place obstacles in patients’ way. The
Legislature should affirm that physician participation is voluntary, and
enact protections from civil liability and professional sanctions for
physicians who practice within the court’s guidelines.”

But the Montana court, while setting a few vague boundaries, never
actually issued guidelines. Compassion and Choices does not really
advocate for guidelines, so much as employ them to give voters and
legislators a false sense of security that people will not be abused
under these laws.
In seeking to head off the organized, well-funded lobby that
advocates legalization of assisting suicide, it is crucial to expose the
inaccuracy of the claim that “safeguards” can effectively prevent
abuse. Moreover, it is important to educate others that seemingly narrow
laws will inevitably expand both here and abroad.Note:
Currently, doctor-prescribed suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington,
and Vermont –and may have some legal protection in the state of Montana,
due to a court decision. Also, an appeal is pending of a Second
District court decision in New Mexico that struck that state’s
decades-old law protecting against assisting suicide. Most recently, New
Jersey was in the crosshairs, with a law like Washington’s that died in
the Assembly this term. Maryland and Nevada may also be prime targets
in 2015.
More information on doctor-prescribed suicide can be found here.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

NGO Ipas Promotes Illegal Abortion Network in Mexico

Editor’s note. This is reprinted from the monthly newsletter of
the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues. “NGO” refers to
Non-Governmental Organizations. Ipas is an international abortion
advocacy organization.While
promoting access to abortion as a “reproductive right” at the United
Nations and advocating for the elimination of pro-life laws, Ipas is
also busy creating illegal abortion networks in Mexico. The work is
based on an “accompaniment model” which pairs abortion seeking women
with volunteers who guide a woman through the self-induced or
do-it-yourself (DIY) abortion and is the subject of the documentary
“Accompaniment” by Ipas partner Las Libres.
According to the Ipas website, “Ipas partner Las Libres has produced a
short documentary film detailing its successful ‘accompaniment model’
that pairs women seeking medical abortion [chemically-induced abortions]
with women committed to accompanying others on a volunteer basis
throughout the process of a safe abortion.” (It is important to note
that “safe” abortion in this context is illegal abortion or in Ipas
terminology “outside the formal health system”.) Las Libres Executive
Director Verónica Cruz stated, “…we were tired of hearing that abortion
is almost always a negative experience for women.”

The network promoting the illegal destruction of children in the womb
has been operating for a number of years in the Mexican state of
Guanajuato where abortion is legally restricted and permitted only in
the case of rape but where Ipas has trained volunteers on the use of
abortion inducing pills for illegal DIY abortion. Volunteers accompany
abortion-minded women to the pharmacy to buy the drug–usually
Cytotec/Misoprostol–and tell her how to take the pills, calling or
texting during the abortion process.

Las Libres’s goal for the network is to change the cultural view of
abortion by showing “the other face of abortion, the positive
experience, the accompanied experience, the exercise of the human right
of women to decide, and the accompaniment of women by other women who
have lived the accompaniment process … to see how after a safe abortion,
accompanied, that woman, that couple or that family eliminates the
stigma around abortion.”

The film is expected to be shared “widely via social media, public
screenings, university classes, conferences, partner organizations, and
through the various accompaniment networks that already exist across
Mexico” with the intent that the “film will help reduce the stigma
surrounding abortion in Mexico and help viewers cultivate a new and more
positive perspective on abortion.” The NGOs hope that abortion
activists in other countries will create their own illegal abortion
networks.
PNCI notes that according to the Pew Global Views on Morality Survey,
63% of people in Mexico believe having an abortion is morally
unacceptable.